Press Release

Förderung für Ozean Monitoring System

Finance Minister Dietrich Austermann contributed 2 million Euros to the firm of Raytheon Marine, a partner in the group “Maritime Cluster Schleswig-Holstein”. They will work with the consortium of scientific institutes and industrial enterprises, which will install, test, and modify an “Ocean Monitoring System” along the coast Baltic Sea at the end of 2007.

Raytheon Marine, working with the Maritime Cluster Schleswig-Holstein, reacted to the tsunami catastrophe of December 26th 2004 by founding the work group “Tsunami Frühwarnsysteme” (“Tsunami Early Warning Systems”). Through regular meetings, workshops tested how scientists, institutions, and companies from Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg could combine their knowledge and capabilities for development and production, as well as combining their international contacts and networks to develop a marketable monitoring system. The acceptance of the project proposal by the Ministry of Finance marks the initial success of the work group.

Following the lead of Raytheon Marine are the companies 4H-Jena Engineering, General Acoustics (in Kiel even), 2wcom (out of Flensburg), F³:Forschung, Fakten, Fantasie (of Heikendorf), SIS Sensoren Instrumente System (Klausdorf), GISMA Connectors (Neumünster), Helzel Messtechnik (Kaltenkirchen), Hydromed Wissentschaftliche Beratung (Wedel), as well as researchers at the University of Kiel’s Forschungs- und Technologiezentrum Büsum and the Leibniz Institute’s IFM-GEOMAR. The participants contributed 50% of the development costs of this pilot system, which is expected to protect the coastal region from catastrophic surprises. Bernhardt Schell, Marketing Manager for Raytheon Marine says, “While predicting the giant waves, so-called tsunamis, was the primary goal, many more applications have been recognized. Over-the-horizon radar can detect not only waves, but even ships at 200 kilometers distance, which enables it to take over reconnaissance duties. The detailed current measurements enable it to predict the patterns of oil spills from collisions and to improve the search for shipwrecked people. The transport of sediments, the shifts in small streams, the erosion of the coasts, or the simulation of the effects of offshore wind power plants; all of these areas can addressed by this new system”. As part of the project, new sensors, new methods of data modeling and data transfer to relay stations, even of digitalizing will be developed and tested. In the end, values must be determined, so that when they are exceeded, warnings can be issued. Clearly, these warnings must reach the authorities and the populace. Educating those responsible, as well as maintaining and supporting the system are additional components, which must be tested and improved as a team. Schell says, “Our consortium pursues the goal of perfecting the pilot installation, so that it can be offered internationally”. A true group effort: an interdisciplinary project, which combines the industrial and scientific knowledge of the entire consortium for a common goal. The marketing potential for such a system is very good: 60% of humanity lives on or near the coasts.

The Maritime Cluster Schleswig-Holstein joined the group in July 2005, in order to expand the cross-disciplinary nature of the project by combining industry, science, and politics. The association Technologieregion K.E.R.N., e.V is currently in charge of the Cluster.